When the M1 Apple iMac arrived in 2021, it brought the considerable computing might of Cupertino's M-series processors to the all-in-one desktop. We were eager to see an M2 sequel (especially to the 27-inch model), but Apple had other plans and priorities, leaving the iMac platform fallow in 2022. In that time, we've seen Windows all-in-ones (AIOs) play an impressive game of catch-up, so the 2023 edition of the 24-inch iMac with M3 power (starting at $1,299; $2,699 as tested) comes out of hibernation facing much fiercer competition than before. Rivals like HP and Lenovo have recently released excellent machines that give Apple's AIO serious competition, but the M3 chip brings the iMac to new heights of capability (including honest-to-goodness modern gaming), earning it our Editors' Choice award.
Apple's New M3 Macs: Hands-On With the Updated 24-Inch iMac and MacBook Pros
Configurations and Design: If It Ain't Broke, Upgrade It
At the same $1,299 starting price as before, the iMac now comes with Apple's M3 processor featuring an eight-core CPU (with four performance and four efficiency cores), an eight-core GPU, and a 16-core neural engine. It's paired with 8GB of unified memory and a 256GB solid-state drive as well as two USB4 Type-C ports with Thunderbolt 3 support.
If you want a bit more graphics power and connectivity, a $1,499 configuration ($1,699 with a 512GB SSD) steps up to a 10-core GPU, two additional USB 3.2 ports (also Type-C), and a Gigabit Ethernet jack. (For those of you with calculators out, that's basically $100 per extra GPU core with a few ports thrown in.)
The M3 processor supports up to 24GB of unified memory and as much as 2TB of storage. With those upgrades, the most stacked iMac (which Apple sent for this review) will cost you $2,699. For the top price, you can get a far more powerful Apple system—like an M2 Pro Mac mini or a 14-inch M3 Pro MacBook Pro—not to mention a high-end Windows AIO.
Similar Products
HP Envy Move
Lenovo IdeaCentre AIO 3i
Dell Inspiron 24 5420 All-in-One
Lenovo Yoga AIO 9i Gen 8
HP Envy 34 All-in-One (2022)
HP EliteOne 870 G9
HP Chromebase All-in-One 22
Also just like before, the iMac measures 18.1 by 21.5 by 5.8 inches (HWD) at the base, though it's dropped a few ounces (9.75 pounds, down from 9.83). All versions come with Apple's crisp 23.5-inch, 4.5K Retina display with 4,480-by-2,520-pixel resolution, a density of 218 pixels per inch, and up to 500 nits of brightness. The screen supports P3 wide color and Apple's True Tone technology that optimizes the color temperature for ambient light.
I especially appreciate the small design nods to iMacs of old. For instance, iMacs prior to the M series were practically all aluminum, but now the chin beneath the screen is covered in the same pane of glass as the display and its bezels, letting the system's signature color shine through.
Everything else about the iMac remains unchanged from the M1 version, with the same excellent 1080p FaceTime webcam above the display and the same color-coded Magic Keyboard and Magic Mouse accessories. Speaking of colors, iMacs in the $1,299 price tier come in blue, green, pink, or silver; splurging for the 10-core GPU unlocks yellow, orange, or purple options, as well as Touch ID on the Magic Keyboard. (You can also choose a Magic Trackpad or a larger keyboard—or both—at checkout for a bit extra.)
While this release was an opportunity to revise the iMac design, I'm fine without any major changes. Some extra connections, particularly an SD or microSD card slot, would be welcome, but ultimately this newish iMac design sticks the landing.
Using the 24-Inch iMac: Familiar Like Apple Pie
Since Apple hasn't changed anything about how the iMac looks or feels in use, we don't have much to cover that hasn't already been said. However, since this is my first iMac review in a long time, I can speak to how it feels to return to the AIO after last using an older, Intel-based model. Naturally, the M3 iMac crushes that antique in terms of performance, but changes to both the screen and macOS make today's iMac feel far more substantial.
With the vibrant, sharp 4.5K Retina display, the new screensavers in macOS Sonoma make the iMac look like a giant digital picture frame. The slow-motion pans of gorgeous natural and urban landscapes slowly and naturally stop at wherever they were playing once you log into the system, a fascinating touch.
While many of my colleagues have lamented the loss of the 27-inch iMac, such a system would simply be too unwieldy for my corner desk space—even 24 inches is on the large side for my taste. (Naturally, I respect the utility of 27-inch or even larger displays for the creative crowd; Lenovo's Yoga AIO 9i Gen 8 is 31.5 inches while the wide-screen HP Envy 34 mimics a dual-monitor setup.)
Apple's keyboards come down to personal taste as far as what you require from a set of keys to feel comfortable. Many typists can't stand Apple keyboards, whereas I feel my most productive while tapping away on one. The company offers a combination of spacing and travel consistency that yields the best typing feel for me.
However, why on earth is the included Magic Keyboard not backlit? Even in indirect lighting, it can be hard to see the key legends when glancing down periodically. Laptops in the same price range, notably the 15-inch MacBook Air, boost productivity with backlit keyboards.
Apple sent both its Magic Trackpad and Magic Mouse for our review. Call me conventional, but I vastly prefer the latter. Using a touchpad divorced from a laptop keyboard is just strange, though I could definitely use a more tactile Magic Mouse in the future—especially if Apple's going to continue to push gaming as a focus. Also, it's well past time for Apple to update the Magic Mouse's impractical charging solution: It still receives power from the underside, so it can't be used while charging.
To be sure, I appreciate the quality of Apple's 1080p FaceTime webcam, which captures highly detailed and realistically colored stills. The image quality looks about on par with the FaceTime camera of my iPhone 13, anecdotally speaking. Videos look predictably sharp and colorful, but I can't account for video call image compression.
Playing some bass-thumping retro game music at even below 50% volume threatened to wake my sleeping son at night, so suffice it to say Apple's audio engineers nailed it with the iMac's sound system. Dolby Atmos spatial audio support aside, you can hear every one of the six speakers booming out from beneath the iMac's display.
Finally, while it hasn't been an issue in testing, I can see how the iMac's limited array of ports can lead to dongle city if you use multiple accessories or peripherals such as USB Type-A storage devices or an external second screen.
All told, the iMac design carries the torch of its forebears with a fun and glitzy design that lives up to its CRT heyday.
Testing the 24-Inch Apple iMac: M3 Is Mighty, But Not Unequaled
The newest Apple iMac brings the company's family desktop straight into the top tier of AIOs in terms of design and performance. With that in mind, we've collected a comparatively high-end array of AIO desktops (as well as the previous iMac) for our benchmark comparison charts. The most direct competitor is the 24-inch HP Envy Move, which offers the convenience of a carrying handle and a few hours on battery power, but the most notable is probably the Yoga AIO 9i, which starts at a higher price than the iMac but, as you'll soon see, earns its keep. We frankly expected the iMac to survive this bout unchallenged, but Apple's rivals have clearly been busy during the iMac's brief hibernation.
Productivity, Content Creation, and Browser Performance Testing
Our first test is Cinebench R23, which uses Maxon’s Cinema 4D engine to render a complex scene to test multi-core and multi-threaded processing. Here, we predictably saw the 2023 iMac outpace its predecessor, but the Lenovo Yoga AIO 9i blew past the M3 iMac for a dominant win. This is a result you'll see repeated, as the Yoga's beefy Intel Core i9 proved a worthy opponent for the M3.
We continue with Primate Labs' Geekbench 5.4.1 Pro, which simulates popular apps ranging from PDF rendering and speech recognition to machine learning, and our real-world CPU challenge HandBrake 1.4, which converts a 12-minute video clip from 4K to 1080p resolution (lower times are better). Again, the new iMac ran circles around the old, while the Core i9 Yoga topped it without breaking a sweat—indeed, almost beating the powerful Mac mini's HandBrake time.
Next up: PugetBench for Photoshop by workstation maker Puget Systems. This automated extension puts the Creative Cloud version 22 of Adobe's famous image editor through a variety of general and GPU-accelerated Photoshop tasks. These range from opening, rotating, resizing, and saving an image to applying masks, gradient fills, and filters to rate a PC's performance for multimedia content creation. Macs run the benchmark via Rosetta 2 emulation.
This test is one in which the M3 iMac makes a name for itself, achieving the leading result. This indicates even better media editing performance than before, as well as decent file export and conversion times. However, it's surprising to see the M3 generally matched or surpassed by an Intel processor. The era of Apple desktop performance dominance seems to be ending. Even so, you can expect a seamless and slick work experience from the latest iMac.
Finally, we run Macs through a series of browser-based performance tests. First is JetStream 2, which puts the system through 64 JavaScript and WebAssembly benchmarks. WebXPRT 3 from Principled Technologies includes HTML tests and more JavaScript throughput tests. Last, we run Basemark Web 3.0, which further exercises systems with a variety of JavaScript plug-ins and other web tools, but notably adds WebGL 2.0 testing for online graphics performance.
With a limited number of reliable benchmarks available, we primarily use these tests as a means of measuring improvements across generations of Macs or between current models. Here we saw that the M3 chip indeed pushes Apple's processing platform beyond the M1 and M2 generations, especially outpacing the M2 Pro (and bucking the trend seen elsewhere in these charts).
Graphics and Game Testing
We begin our macOS graphics testing with the cross-platform 3DMark Wildlife Extreme running in Unlimited mode (higher scores are better). With nine more GPU cores, the dominance of the Mac mini's M2 Pro was scarcely surprising.
Next is GFXBench 5, a cross-platform test we use to compare performance across Windows and Mac. This benchmark stresses both low-level routines like texturing and high-level, game-like image rendering. The 1440p Aztec Ruins and 1080p Car Chase tests, rendered offscreen to accommodate different display resolutions, exercise graphics and compute shaders using the OpenGL programming interface and hardware tessellation respectively. The more frames per second (fps), the better. We saw the M3 establish its position above even the Core i9's integrated graphics, showing an area where Intel has more work to do.
Finally, our real-world test Rise of the Tomb Raider gives a sense of a Mac's actual AAA gaming capabilities. Yes, it's an older game, but it's one of the few in the Steam library that both runs on Macs and has a built-in benchmark utility. We record average frames per second (fps) at different detail or image quality settings. The results echo earlier tests: M3 good, M2 Pro better.
Nevertheless, it's impressive that the iMac reached 60fps with high detail settings in Rise of the Tomb Raider. Truly, gaming with integrated graphics has come a long way. Anecdotally, I was able to test Baldur's Gate 3 on the new iMac at 1080p and 1440p with high detail settings and found the game absolutely playable—close to 60fps at 1080p. Yes, that's a 2023 game running smoothly with eye candy active on essentially a mobile-integrated GPU. Get more games like Baldur's Gate on there, and the Mac might finally get its gaming groove back. (I should note that my test iMac has the 10-core GPU version of the M3, though I wouldn't expect substantially worse graphics performance with just two fewer GPU cores.)
Display Testing
To gauge display performance, we use a Datacolor SpyderX Elite monitor calibration sensor and software to measure color saturation—what percentage of the sRGB, Adobe RGB, and DCI-P3 color gamuts or palettes a display can show—and its 50% and peak brightness in nits (candelas per square meter).
Yet again, the Lenovo Yoga AIO 9i proved to be the new iMac's primary rival, narrowly edging the Apple all-in-one in color coverage and surpassing the iMac screen's brightness, which came in under Apple's advertised 500 nits. However, I found the iMac's 480 nits to be practically blinding, even with Night Shift turned on. Plus, with so many darn pixels, the Retina display is truly a pleasant one to work on and watch with. You won't be gaming at 4.5K resolution with the M3 chip, but you'll still get the billion-color support when playing at 1080p or 1440p.
Verdict: A Mega-Powered iMac That Intel Saw Coming
The 2023 edition of the 24-inch Apple iMac is a real pleasure to use, and arguably the best all-in-one desktop when it comes to the amount and variety of tasks it can accomplish. Not only can you get high-intensity work done, but you can watch 4K movies and, yes, play games. However, the iMac is no longer the AIO champion by default, as Intel and its customers have caught up in performance. The Lenovo Yoga AIO 9i's integrated graphics mean it can't play games like the iMac can, but it came out on top most everywhere else, while deep-pocketed gamers can order an HP Envy 34 with an Nvidia GeForce GPU. That said, is this the best iMac to date? Undoubtedly, and as such it easily earns our Editors' Choice award.
The field is more competitive than ever, but the M3 processor takes Apple's 2023 edition of the all-in-one 24-inch iMac desktop to new performance heights, even for gaming.
Apple Fan?
Sign up for our Weekly Apple Brief for the latest news, reviews, tips, and more delivered right to your inbox.
This newsletter may contain advertising, deals, or affiliate links. Subscribing to a newsletter indicates your consent to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. You may unsubscribe from the newsletters at any time.
Thanks for signing up!
Your subscription has been confirmed. Keep an eye on your inbox!
Sign up for other newsletters
